


Five Times Steve Rogers Didn't Know How to Kiss (And One Time He Did)

by Sara_Ellison



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, F/M, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-19 23:15:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1487692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sara_Ellison/pseuds/Sara_Ellison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>By the time Steve remembers the pot of coffee, it's long gone cold.</p></blockquote>





	Five Times Steve Rogers Didn't Know How to Kiss (And One Time He Did)

  1. It's dark in the apartment. A summer storm has knocked out the electricity on the whole block, and the only light comes in bolts of electricity stabbing out of the sky like divine wrath. The two boys sit huddled together in front of the bedroom window, counting the seconds between flash and thunder. 

"I think they're getting closer," Steve says over the rumble.

Bucky grins at him, his teeth and skin brilliantly white for a moment as lightning crackles across the sky. "Sure are. Are you scared?"

"Nah." Steve shrugs. He used to be when he was little, and would hide under the covers for every storm. But he's not a kid anymore. He's grown up (a little), and his voice has settled (mostly) into its lower register. He's got body hair, although not as much as Bucky does—not that Steve is in the business of comparing himself to his friend, because he's long ago accepted that he's small and will always be small, and Bucky has recently grown tall and strong and handsome.

Steve isn't small everywhere, of course; there's that one part of him that's absurdly, uncomfortably out of proportion on his frame, but the first time Bucky saw him naked, his eyes got huge and he just stared for a moment before he grinned. "Girls are gonna _love_ you," he declared, and Steve was a little hurt that Bucky would make fun of him about this, because girls already had enough reasons to laugh at him, didn't they? Steve decided that he wouldn't let any girl see him naked unless he already trusted her enough not to laugh at the stupidly oversized thing between his legs.

Bucky didn't _laugh_ , of course; if anything, he seemed a little impressed. He asked to see how big it was when it got hard, and Steve agreed to show him, and Bucky put his hand on it and things went about how you'd expect. From then on they tended to help each other out whenever one of them needed release, and usually it was both of them. They just used their hands, at first, until that one time when Bucky had stepped closer and pressed his body up against Steve's so he could get both of them in his hand at the same time. And things went about how you'd expect.

Whenever Steve stays over at Bucky's, they put the couch cushions on the floor as a makeshift bed, but Bucky always talks Steve into crawling into his bed, eventually, and after the first few times it didn't take all that much convincing. They usually end up rubbing against each other, legs slotted together and arms wrapped around each other, not even bothering to use their hands on each other. Bucky discovered, almost by accident, that Steve finishes faster when Bucky presses his open mouth in the space between Steve's collarbone and the tendon in his neck, that soft hollow where his pulse flutters—and this discovery delighted Bucky, for some reason, even though it embarrasses Steve that he has so little stamina.

That was as intimate as they ever get, skin-to-skin and mouth-to-skin. Steve secretly loves those moments, the two of them together; he secretly loves the smell of Bucky at the end of the day when he's a little sweaty, and his musk fills Steve's nostrils when they're so close together. He can smell it now, at the end of a hot summer day with Bucky so close to him and the air electric between them. He's so handsome, with his chiseled jaw and his dark bedroom eyes—not that Steve would ever describe him thus aloud. Bucky is gorgeous, he's _beautiful_ in the darkness and even more so when the light strikes, and Steve can't help leaning closer to him. His mouth is dry, and he swallows hard and licks his lips.

Bucky catches the flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye. He glances over and catches Steve watching him instead of the storm, and grins that grin of his and leans in and catches Steve's mouth with his.

Steve doesn't know what to do at first, and he tries to kiss back and accidentally bumps his nose against Bucky's. Bucky isn't dissuaded, though, and he keeps trying, doing things with his lips and tongue— _incredible_ things, that Steve would probably never have thought to try—until he seems to figure out how Steve's mouth works, and then Steve sort of figures out how Bucky's mouth works, and they keep kissing and it just feels better and better and he doesn't really notice that he's moaning into Bucky's mouth, until he loses control a little bit and his pants get all sticky.

He expects Bucky to laugh at him, but he doesn't; he just makes this _sound_ , muffled into Steve's mouth, that makes it all worth it. Then he grabs Steve's hand and puts it in his lap, and Steve has had a lot more practice at that than he has at kissing, and it's not long before Bucky's pants are sticky too.

Steve figures he did okay at kissing, considering it was his first time.

  2. She's gorgeous, and blonde, and curvy. Steve doesn't know her name, and he feels a little guilty about that (even though how could he?) because she certainly knows his. Well, a lot of people know his name. He's Captain America, after all. He has admittedly spent a lot more time with gorgeous women since the transformation, and he's seen a lot more bare female skin, even if the scantily-clad women surrounding him were paid to be there by the same politicians paying him to pretend to punch Hitler in the face. He's a household name now, of course she knows who he is, he's famous. And she's a soldier in SSR, working with Howard Stark. Howard probably knows her name. Steve should ask him what it is, when he gets the chance. It would be rude not to, to just think of her as the gorgeous blonde woman. That devalues her as a person, and Steve is sure there are a lot of more interesting layers to this woman, other than her being a soldier and blonde and gorgeous. He wonders if Howard thinks of her as gorgeous, because she certainly is. He wonders if Howard has ever kissed her. He wonders if the possibility that he has should make Steve feel jealous, and he wonders if it's rude to the woman that he doesn't. 

All these thoughts go through Steve's head in the moments after she presses her mouth against his, and before he remembers that it's polite to kiss back.

Being kissed by a woman isn't at all like being kissed by a man, and it takes a moment too long for Steve to adjust, to figure out how to compromise—compensate. She kisses softer, less forceful, almost submissive as though she expects him to take control. She backed him up against the file cabinet and grabbed him by his necktie, and now she wants him to take the reins?

His hands come up to hold her, or push her away—he's not really sure where his instincts are going with this, and it doesn't matter because Peggy catches him—interrupts him—saves him. He says something stupid about fonduing, and he's been a little clumsy since the serum, he thought he was getting used to the new body but this is the most awkward he's ever been and he ends up with his foot lodged in his mouth.

In retrospect, better his foot than the gorgeous blonde's tongue.

  3. Steve is torn, more than he's ever been. There's Peggy, and there's the mission—and she understands, he knows she does, but he wishes to God he had more time with her. He's about to leap from a speeding car onto an airplane taking off over the edge of a cliff, and there's this sinking feeling like he's never going to see her again. 

"Wait!" she says, and he turns to her, part of him almost hoping that she'll beg him not to go—even though he _has_ to, the world is quite literally at stake here. But she doesn't beg him, doesn't say anything more, only looks up at him with _everything_ written on her face, her brown eyes wide.

He leans down and presses his lips to hers. It's not nearly long enough of a kiss, not deep enough, it's not the way he wants to kiss her. He wants to kiss her like the blonde woman kissed him, the way he used to kiss Bucky, but she's not Bucky—he tries to remember that kissing women is different, and he wants to put everything he feels for her into that kiss, but there's no time and he can't figure out how. He pulls away too soon, because there's the mission waiting for him. "Go get him," she tells him.

He lingers a little too long, wishing it could be different, wishing they had more time, until Colonel Phillips makes a smart remark that spurs him to action. And as he leaps across the gulf between car and plane, it feels like he's leaving Peggy behind forever.

  4. Tony Stark has a nuclear warhead on his back. 

That's all Steve knows. He slept through Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but he's seen videos of atomic blasts and he knows what's going to happen if Iron Man doesn't get that missile through the portal. He knows what's going to happen on the other side, in the space the Chitauri came from, wherever that is. In his mind's eye, he sees the explosions as bright as the sun and the mushroom clouds that signify inescapable destruction, but maybe in space there wouldn't be a cloud? Steve doesn't know what's on the other side of that portal. It doesn't really matter; all that matters is Tony getting through that portal.

And getting back. That's the other important thing, and Steve's heart is in his throat as he watches the red suit fly through the gap in reality and stay gone too long. He waits as long as he can, gives Tony as much time as possible, longer than he should, before he calls it. "Close it," he orders.

The thing closes up like a flower blooming in reverse, closing in on itself faster than Steve wants it to and his heart fucking stops in his chest as he spots the figure slipping through it at the very last fucking moment. And he's _falling_ , not flying, there's no glow of repulsor jets at the ends of his limbs and Steve goes silently mad and curses Dr. Erskine for not putting anything in his serum that would give him the ability to fly. Thor is spinning his hammer like a propeller, about to step in and do what Steve can't, when a great green blur shoots out of the sky and catches Tony Stark's limp form.

Tony isn't moving, isn't breathing as far as Steve can tell, and with the armor on he can't check for a pulse. Hulk has ripped the faceplate off, and Steve knows CPR but he doesn't think he's strong enough to perform chest compressions, not through that armor. He rests a hand on Tony's chestplate, briefly, futilely. He could do rescue breaths, but without compressions, how effective would that be? He may as well just be kissing him like Sleeping Beauty.

He's going mad, wanting to crawl out of his skin with the frustration of not being able to do anything to help Tony. He wants to scream in his face to wake him up, and it's seeming like a better and better idea just to _try_ the Sleeping Beauty kiss, just on the wild, improbable chance that it might work. His mouth is dry, though, and he doesn't really know how to kiss someone who _can't_ kiss back, an unconscious—victim—who might not even want to be kissed—

Hulk screams in Tony's face to wake him up. Tony gasps and jerks awake, and Hulk roars again in triumph, pounding his chest. Steve sympathizes.

"Whoa! What the hell?" Tony says. "What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me."

Steve half-smiles, a little embarrassed, mostly relieved. He made the right call on that one, then. Not kissing Tony was the right decision. Probably. He kind of wishes he'd been the one to roar at him, though. His roar wouldn't have been as impressive as Hulk's, maybe, but at least he would have been doing something to help.

"We won," he says.

  5. Natasha is right. Steve is a bad liar, and he's grateful to her for not calling him out on it this time. She knows it was his first kiss since 1945. She could tell; it was that bad. 

He could have been better, if he'd had some warning. If he'd understood that he was actually about to be kissed, and why. Of course, in retrospect, it all makes sense—public displays of affection make people look away, and those S.H.I.E.L.D.—no, HYDRA agents hunting them had done exactly as they were supposed to do, and looked away, and not noticed that he and Natasha were the fugitives they were hunting.

_Now_ , he understands. At the time, though, it was just Natasha demanding he kiss her, which was a little more of a turn-on than it probably should have been, because Natasha is a very attractive woman but Steve doesn't think of her that way. They work together, and even if he were looking for romance, he wouldn't want to complicate their friendship that way. But he is still a red-blooded human being, and Natasha _is_ gorgeous, and his mind sort of blanked out when she leaned up and pressed her mouth to his.

He _knows_ how to kiss. He's just out of practice, and given the choice he would have liked to practice on someone who is a little less fully capable of throwing him off-balance as Natasha is. Not that being unexpectedly kissed by someone he were in love with wouldn't throw him off-balance as well. It's just that he would have done a better job if he were more prepared for it.

He has pretty good reflexes when he knows what he has to do. His body does what he asks, when he knows what to ask. But with Natasha's tongue slipping into his mouth and her body pressed against his, he completely forgot everything he knew about kissing.

When she stopped kissing him, it took him a little too long to remember what he was supposed to do now, to remember that they were on the run and had other things to do than just stand on an escalator and make out. He doesn't even like Natasha that way! It was just extremely pleasant, being kissed by her, even if she was better at it than he was. At least she's nice about it.




He thought he would have to hunt down the Winter Soldier, but as it happens, Bucky finds him first. He catches Steve by surprise, actually, showing up in the hallway outside the apartment where he and Sam are staying. It's dark, and Bucky's lurking in the shadows, and Sam sees him first. He's got his handgun pointed at the dark figure before Steve can stop him, but he lays a calming hand on Sam's arm. "It's okay," he says. "We're okay."

Bucky's got his metal arm covered by his shirt, his hair pulled back out of his eyes, and Steve can tell from his stance that he's not looking for a fight. Sam glances from him to Steve and back again, then slips the safety back on his weapon and lowers it. "You're the Captain," he says, voice dry.

Steve nods. "Could you, uh...give us a minute?"

"Sure." Sam shrugs, reholstering his weapon and adjusting it so it sits comfortably. "Call me if you need me, okay? Especially if he gets all murdery again."

"We'll be fine," Steve reiterates, and watches as Sam turns and heads down the stairs. He unlocks the door to the apartment. "Come on in, Bucky."

"Don't call me that," the other man says. "That's...the name of someone...who isn't who I am."

His speech seems hesitant, halting, and Steve frowns. Whatever HYDRA did to his head, it's clearly taken its toll. "All right," he agrees, gesturing into the apartment. "What would you like to be called?"

The man who used to be Bucky heads into the living room before answering. He seats himself on the small couch, sprawling with his legs wide, taking up the entire space. It's very familiar, the way he moves. Steve follows him in, shutting the door behind him, and stands awkwardly. There's no other seating. The other man looks Steve up and down, slowly, his expression unreadable.

"James," the man says at last. "That was my name, right?"

Steve nods. "It _is_ your name," he confirms. "I never called you anything but Bucky, though. It'll take some getting used to."

"Get used to it, then," James says, a little harsh. "I heard...they were playing music outside the shops. The radio announcer said...the lady who sang it was named... Gaga."

Steve blinks. What's his point? "I've heard her music," he says warily.

James nods. "So how long do you think it took...for people to get used to her name?"

Steve doesn't know what to say to that. He gapes at Bucky—James—for a moment, then chuckles. "Okay," he says. "James. Can I get you anything? Water? Beer? Vodka?"

James' face sours. "Not vodka," he says. "I'll take some coffee, if you've got any."

"Sure," Steve agrees, and he goes to the little kitchenette and starts a pot brewing. He grabs a package of cookies while he's in there, pours them out onto a plate, and brings them back out to the living room. He sets plate on the edge of the coffee table. "So," he says.

James looks up at him. "Are you sleeping with him?"

He boggles, utterly dumbfounded. "Who?"

James jerks his head in the direction of the front door. "The man with the wings."

"Oh. Sam?" Steve shakes his head. "No. We're just friends. He's helping me look for you, actually. Why? Did it seem like I was sleeping with him?"

James shakes his head. "I was just wondering," he says.

"Oh," Steve replies. He's not sure what else to say to that. Part of him wants to ask if James would be jealous if Steve _were_ sleeping with Sam, but a wiser part tells him to keep his mouth shut.

"I saw the thing at the museum," James says. "Was I really your best friend?"

It hurts, the lump that forms in the base of Steve's throat, too thick to swallow around. He sits down beside the plate of cookies. The wood of the coffee table is unyielding. "Yeah," he manages to say. It's such an understatement, but he's wary. He doesn't want to scare James off too much. God only knows what HYDRA changed in his head. Maybe now he would be disgusted by the idea of what they used to be to each other.

"I almost remember," James says. "I'm not sure what's real, and...what is just what they wanted me to think. You looked different sometimes. Smaller."

Steve nods, relieved. "I was smaller," he agrees. "They gave me the serum that turned me into a super-soldier, and I became Captain America. Do you remember when I rescued you from that HYDRA base in Italy?"

He frowns again. "They messed with my head there, I think. I felt like I was dreaming, for a long time. I don't know when I woke up." He falls silent and stares at Steve for a moment, the only sound the coffee trickling into the pot in the other room. Finally, he says, "The memories where you were small seem more real, but here we are, and you're not little now. Is this real, right now?"

Steve makes a silent vow to find the people who had done this to his friend's mind, and to make them pay. "It's real," he says.

James shakes his head. "I hurt people. I've hurt a lot of people. Is that real too?"

Steve nods. "It's not your fault," he says. "You've been manipulated by bad people. You didn't know what you were doing."

James sits forward, elbows on his knees, his hair falling into his face. "It all feels like some horrible dream."

"You said that," Steve remembers, and smiles. "In that pub in London. You were trying to flirt with Peggy, and she was ignoring you. When you asked her questions, she answered me. You said you were turning into me."

"No," James says. "I don't remember that."

"Oh." Steve shifts a little, awkwardly. "I was never really a ladies' man, back when I was skinny. You were always the handsome one. Women loved you."

"You're handsome," James says. He gives Steve that unreadable look again, then licks his lips.

Steve swallows hard, his heart suddenly pounding. What is going on here? "Um," he says. "Thank you."

James reaches out with both hands, resting his palms on Steve's chest. "All my memories of you, like this, are the ones...that feel like dreams. I don't know how I got from one place to another...or where the things I'm carrying came from. I don't know why you're big. The clearer memories, the ones from before..." He trails off. He runs his hands down Steve's torso, almost absently, like he's not aware of doing it. "You felt different. All bony. No meat on you at all." His fingers drag down Steve's abdomen, tracing the lines of his muscles.

"Bucky," Steve says, his voice hoarse. This isn't the time or the place for James to be touching him like this, not when they're having this conversation about how fucked-up his head is. He puts his hands over James' where they rest on his thighs, but he can't force the metal arm to move, and the other one he doesn't want to hurt, so he lets James' hands stay where they are, and lets go again.

"James," he corrects. He runs his hands up and down Steve's thighs, squeezing gently. It affects Steve about how you'd expect. "I remember...you felt different."

Steve should pull away, should stop this before it gets out of hand. This isn't right, not when James doesn't remember who he is, or what he and Steve were to each other. But there's no power in the universe that can make him turn his back on this man wearing Bucky's face. "What do you need from me, James?" he breathes.

James meets his eyes, suddenly, and Steve is stunned by how gorgeous he is, as beautiful as he's ever been—but there's nothing behind it, none of the connection that used to be there when they would look into each other's eyes. "Help me remember...who we were to each other," he says.

"I think," Steve begins. It's a little hard to form thoughts, with James touching him like this so the bloodflow to his brain is being diverted somewhat south. "I think you've remembered some of it, or you wouldn't be feeling me up right now."

James smiles. It's a smirk, actually, a very familiarly smug expression that Steve has seen a thousand times before. "Some," he admits. "Help me remember more?"

Steve closes his eyes. It's too hard to think clearly, looking at that face, that mouth finally curved in a smile, the shape it's best suited to. "Tell me what you already remember," he hears himself say. "Maybe I can fill in the gaps."

"I remember mostly...sensations," James says. "Heat. Comfort. Pleasure. I remember your eyes, your mouth. And your body, when you were skinny. I don't remember feeling you when you were like this."

"No," Steve agrees. "We never...not after the serum. You had already gone away to war when I was...when I changed, and after I found you again, there was just never a good time."

"Maybe if I could feel those sensations again, I could remember more," James suggests.

It seems like a very logical thing to try. With the full intent of helping his friend remember, Steve opens his eyes again. He cups James' face in his hands, palms framing his jaw, thumbs tracing his cheekbones, and presses their mouths together.

He pours everything he is into that kiss, bringing to the forefront of his mind every memory he has of Bucky—the good times and the bad, the early days of their friendship, their growing bond, the love they had for each other, the grief they shared and the support they offered one another. He kisses James with the ghosts of every kiss they ever exchanged, every night spent together, every whispered three-word confession. And he kisses with all the technical expertise he's gained from experience and learning from his mistakes, long hours of practice with Bucky and the brief lessons in what not to do.

He feels James relax abruptly, his lips parting slightly under Steve's. This is automatic, now, Steve's tongue slipping into the other man's mouth, so familiar, so comfortable, so pleasurable. James' hands are on Steve's hips, now, pulling him closer until Steve finds himself in James' lap, straddling him, and Steve can feel that James is enjoying this as much as he is. Steve has his hands in James' hair, now, long strands twining between his fingers, and James' arms are wrapped around Steve's torso, holding him tight against James' body.

A kind of shudder rolls through James then, starting as a tightening of his arms and moving down his body, rolling his hips up against Steve with a groan. And Steve—he understands, he sympathizes, he really does, but there's an obnoxious nagging voice in the back of his mind, one that wants to call himself a conscience, and he breaks away, breathing hard. "Bucky," he says. "James. Stop. We shouldn't..."

James opens his eyes, bright and clear. "Steve," he says. "That was...good. That helped." His lips are moist and red, swollen from kissing, and so tempting.

Steve forces himself to move, to shift off of James' lap, his weight properly on the couch now although they're still fairly well plastered together, still touching far more than they ought to be, still in a compromising position as far as any outsider would be concerned. "Good," he hears himself say. It takes a little longer to remember what he's supposed to be helping, what his intentions were in kissing James. "Do you...remember more?"

James nods. "Not everything. But I remember you. Steve Rogers. The kid from Brooklyn who didn't know when to run away from a fight."

"Some fights are worth sticking around for," Steve says. He rests his head on James' shoulder, comfortable but not relaxed. His body is too keyed up, responding to the proximity of the other man, and the touching, and the kissing. He shuts his eyes and tries to slow the pounding of his heart, breathing steadily through his nose, but he can smell Bucky's familiar scent and it's entirely counterproductive.

"What was it you were saying, that we shouldn't do?" James asks, his voice soft but strong.

Steve winces and forces himself to sit up, pulling that much further away from James. "We shouldn't get carried away," he says. "You're not...you're not the Bucky I remember. My expectations are unfair to you."

"Carried away," James repeats, his voice dry. "Now you tell me." The expression he's wearing is equal parts sheepish and smug, one that Steve remembers well. It makes him blush to think of the last time he saw that look on Bucky's face, when the two of them were lying together in bed, both sweaty and sticky and exhausted. James half-shrugs. "It was a really good kiss," he says.

Steve isn't sure whether to laugh, whether to pull away or move closer again. He swallows hard to clear the tension in his throat. "It really helped? With your memory, I mean?"

James nods. "It's quieter now," he says. "The noise between my ears. It's still there, but...it's a little easier to tune it out now, to hear what's underneath."

Steve nods. The noise between James' ears, he's sure, is just one more thing HYDRA has to answer for. The thought of what they've done to him makes his blood boil, and not in the pleasant way that comes from being able to feel the pulse in James' thigh against his own. "That's good," he says, trying to focus. The goal here is justice, not sex. "Right?"

James nods. "It might be better...it might get quieter, still. I mean, I might remember more, maybe, if you kiss me again." He half-shrugs. "I don't know if it will help." His mouth twitches as though he's trying not to grin, and there's a spark in his eye, the old Bucky showing through.

It's enough, more than enough to produce a smile of his own in answer. "Well," Steve says. "It couldn't hurt to try." And things go about how you'd expect.

**Author's Note:**

> By the time Steve remembers the pot of coffee, it's long gone cold.


End file.
